{"id":771887,"date":"2026-07-01T10:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T10:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/771887\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T10:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T10:41:15","slug":"village-people-founding-member-lead-singer-victor-willis-dead-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/771887\/","title":{"rendered":"Village People founding member, lead singer Victor Willis dead at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lead singer and a founding member of the Village People disco group has died at the age of 74.<\/p>\n

Victor Willis, who portrayed a policeman and naval officer in the troupe, founded the group in 1977 with Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group announced Willis had died after “a short but aggressive illness”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Privacy is requested.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Victor Willis celebrating with the band after a performance at Madison Square Garden in 1979. (AP: G. Paul Burnett)<\/p>\n

Karen Huff-Willis, Willis’s wife, announced his death on his official Facebook account.<\/p>\n

“It is with profound sadness that I must announce the death of my husband, Victor Willis,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

“The family request privacy at this time of great loss.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

Victor Willis’s career spanned almost 50 years, both in the Village People and as a soloist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Morali and Belolo, Willis helped write hit songs In the Navy, Macho Man and others. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Village<\/p>\n

\u00a0Victor Willis (centre) joined other members of the Village People to perform at a rally for US President Donald Trump before his second inauguration. (Reuters: Carlos Barria)<\/p>\n

He left the Village People in the 80s and performed as a solo artist until he rejoined the group in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the Village People and its music’s reputation in the LGBTQ+ community, Victor Willis said YMCA was not a “gay anthem”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He later clarified his statement and said: “Although [I] don’t mind that gays think of YMCA as a gay anthem, I think it’s important that they be aware that my lyrics are not about that”.<\/p>\n

“Still, as I’ve said many times already, it’s OK that they believe otherwise,” Willis said.<\/p>\n

In 2025, he joined members of the Village People in performing at a pre-inauguration rally for US President Donald Trump’s second term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Village<\/p>\n

Willis toured with the Village People as late as May 2026.\u00a0 (Supplied: Facebook\/Victor Willis)<\/p>\n

Willis joined Mr Trump on stage, performing the song YMCA, despite having previously asked him not to use Village People music at his rally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Willis attributed YMCA’s surge in popularity to Mr Trump’s use of it while campaigning and said “it wasn’t the LGBTQ community that made YMCA great again \u2026 it wasn’t the African American community that did that either.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

“While we don’t want YMCA to be used for political statements of any kind, President Trump merely sharing a video containing our song about President Obama does not meet the standard for copyright infringement,” the group said on X in July of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Village People recently performed in India following a European tour and performed for US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (Supplied: Facebook\/Victor Willis)<\/p>\n

Willis said the Village People performance was “not an endorsement of the president-elect’s policies”.<\/p>\n

“We believe that music should be shared across the political spectrum and not preserved for one political side,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We are doing the right thing by performing and keeping political views out of this.<\/p>\n

“So please stop pushing your political views onto Village People.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lead singer and a founding member of the Village People disco group has died at the age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,2490,134,366657,366656,136,366655,366654,24047],"class_list":["post-771887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-in-the-navy","tag-macho-man","tag-music","tag-victor-willis","tag-village-people","tag-ymca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}